Updated: December 21, 2019
A Buffalo man accused of lying to a grand jury about a murder he witnessed has pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Demetrius “Little D” Lowry, 24, was indicted in May for lying to a grand jury about the murder of his cousin Jaquan Sullivan.
Sullivan was shot and killed in front of Lowry’s house on Parkdale Avenue in Buffalo on the evening of December 5, 2015.
Update: Shanna Smith has pleaded guilty.
A woman who allegedly lied to a federal grand jury about her cousin’s involvement in the death of man outside a party in Buffalo, New York, has been indicted and is facing up to 20 years in prison.
On July 17, 2019, Shanna Smith, 25, was arrested and charged with false declarations before a grand jury and obstruction of justice. She pled not guilty and was released on her own recognizance.
On June 21, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York announced that a former grand juror had pled guilty to leaking secret grand jury information to a number of people between November 2016 and May 2017.
According to court filings, Casey Lipps, 26, of North Tonawanda, New York, was selected to serve on a federal grand jury in October 2016. North Tonawanda is a city of around 32,000 located midway between Buffalo and Niagara Falls in western New York.